


What If?

by oh_johnny



Category: The Beatles (Band)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-13
Updated: 2019-08-13
Packaged: 2020-08-23 04:36:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20236846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oh_johnny/pseuds/oh_johnny
Summary: Paul is watching the movieYesterdayand it's made him think about the what ifs.





	What If?

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR THE MOVIE YESTERDAY INCLUDING THE ENDING.

Paul hits pause, stopping the film on a close-up of the man on the screen, tears rolling down his face.

He'd known this bit was coming, had approved it, along with Ringo and Yoko, but it doesn't make it any easier to see. And now he's left with all the what-ifs.

Was the very existence of The Beatles responsible for John's murder? Yes, if in a round-about way. And he can't complain about a world in which his best friend, dearest enemy, and sometime lover still lives. But...

It's a world in which he and John never met. Or, if they did meet, it was a casual thing in passing. Nothing monumental, nothing to shake first their private world and then the whole world. Nothing _special_. And doesn't that just hurt like a sonofabitch.

But.

It's a world in which John lives, is still living. Settled. Happy. Extrapolating, Paul thinks that John would have gone into the merchant navy – something he had once thought he might do, although the thought had horrified him. And there was a woman. Cyn, maybe, since non-Beatle John would also never have met Yoko. 

Once upon a time that would have made Paul happy, but he's long past any of that particular petty reaction. 

Lost in what might have been, George might still be with us as well, he thinks. It's a world in which cigarettes had never been invented, so the cancer might not have taken him. George would be... huh. It's hard to imagine him doing anything but being an artist of some kind. Although, he was always good with money, so maybe some sort of financier. With a conscience. 

Ringo, well, Ringo had already been a working musician when they'd met, so it's easy enough to see him making a living with music, although probably not as much, he chuckles. 

And Paul himself? He thinks he'd have liked to have had a pub, if he could. Or something where he got to meet a lot of people. John always had said Paul could and would talk to absolutely anyone. Married, but... no Linda. 

Oh. 

And the ripples continue – Julian, Dhani, Zac. And the lights of his life Mary, Stella, James, Beatrice. That doesn't even bear thinking about, never mind all the grandchildren. 

Life does what life is going to do, and there's not a damned thing anyone can do about it. The what-ifs will make you crazy. 

Still. A world in which he could still just possibly run into a man named John Lennon and become his friend?

Yeah. That's a world he wouldn't mind visiting for a while.


End file.
